FACT SF Reading Group

April 2000

April 4: Code of Conduct by Kristine Smith

Ten people attended the discussion of Code of Conduct. This book, a first novel, is a space opera espionage thriller. Its protagonist is a middle-aged female spy who helps a former lover investigate the mysterious circumstances of his wife's death.

Most of us liked the book. We liked reading an SF spy novel, a type of book that isn't very common these days. The plot had interesting twists. The protagonist's personality was developed deeply, with a well thought out depiction of the loneliness and alienation of a spy. Also, many appreciated the author's realistic touches in showing the aches and pains of a woman in her forties. The author avoided several common first-novel mistakes, such as long information dumps.

It must be pointed out that all of the people in our group who liked this book were women. Of the three men who attended this discussion, only one was able to finish it and he could remember nothing about the book. Strangely, what kept the guys from enjoying the book had nothing to do with the author's gender. They all just found Smith's prose style hard to read, and they found the story and characters weren't sufficiently compelling to keep reading.

Even those who generally enjoyed the book found a few flaws with it. Most of us found Smith's prose style in describing action scenes to be confusing, and there were several passages we had to read several times to puzzle out what was going on. One person took detailed notes of the various plot points while reading the book, and at the end she found that the story did not all add up. The motivations of some of the supporting characters didn't always make sense.

Overall we found this to be an interesting but flawed first novel.

April 8: Sean Stewart Lunch

Sean Stewart was in town to sign Galveston at Adventures in Crime & Space, so eight people from the Reading Group took him to lunch at Ninfa's before the signing. Sean answered our questions about his books, and he told us interesting stories about his research for Galveston and Mockingbird. After lunch we got our books signed at ACS and heard Sean read a chapter about cannibals from Galveston. We were glad we'd eaten before the reading.

April 18: The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro

The discussion of Catherine Asaro's recent technothriller drew twelve participants. Asaro is to be the Guest of Honor at this year's ArmadilloCon. The Veiled Web is a near-future novel in which an American ballerina, Lucia, gets romantically involved with a Moroccan computer genius named Rashid. While Lucia and Rashid are trying to work through their cultural differences, they get captured by spies who want to harness Rashid's intelligence for their own dubious plans.

We generally found this to be a well-written thriller. The Veiled Web contains several gripping action scenes that we thought worked well. We thought Rashid's computer research was interesting, and we liked his AI character Zaki. The personality of Lucia seemed realistic for a ballerina, and it's clear that Asaro knows a great deal about dance. The cultural and religious background of Rashid and his family seemed carefully researched. Asaro obviously felt passionately about the beauty of Morocco and its society, and she avoided common stereotypes about Moslems. One member of our discussion had been reading this book on an airplane, and she found the story so compelling that when her plane landed, she finished the book in an airport waiting area before claiming her baggage.

A few in our group just couldn't accept the strong romance element of this plot. As one of this contingent put it, "I knew where this book was going and did not want to go there." Interestingly, both women and men were in the group put off by the romance element. Additionally, the group that liked the book contained both men and women.

Even those that generally liked the book found a few problems with it. One person felt the depiction of artificial intelligence research lacked verisimilitude. Others felt there was too much explanation of how the World Wide Web works, although we agreed that the editor likely made the author include this material. Some felt that the balance between the various elements of the plot (romance, spy thriller, and artificial intelligence research) wasn't quite right.

Overall we found this to be a successful thriller for those who don't mind a lot of romance. At the end of the discussion, we added several books to the reading schedule. Our current schedule runs through September.

-- A. T. Campbell, III